


Per Carnaval Tot Se Val

by waferkya



Category: Basketball RPF, Football RPF
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 18:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I’m moving to Madrid next year,” he mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. “They all hate each other over there, it must be great.”</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Per Carnaval Tot Se Val

“I’d rather die,” Juan Carlos says, flatly. He sets down his mug of hot chocolate milk and crosses his arms with unflappable dignity to stress his point. Vanessa doesn’t even turn around from the computer, but she giggles, unimpressed.

“Sorry, I already told them we’re going.”

“ _Vane_ ,” he snorts, and dully thumps the back of his head into the couch. “We’re supposed to discuss these sorts of things, you know.”

“We are discussing it,” she says, still looking at whatever it is she’s looking at on the screen. “I’m giving you full choice over your costume, you should be grateful.”

Juan Carlos’ eyes go wide and round like table-tennis balls. “I am _not_ wearing a costume.”

Vanessa giggles again. “Don’t be silly. It’s a costume party, of course you’re going to wear a costume.”

“I’d rather _die_ ,” Juan Carlos repeats, sounding definitely desperate now. Vanessa finally twists on the swivel chair and she rolls her eyes at him.

“You know I can arrange that,” she says. “You’re going to this party, Juanca. We are both going, and we are both going to wear costumes and be sociable and have a nice, fun night, because you know how much Gerard likes you, and this thing means the world to him.”

“He has a son now,” Juan Carlos says, weakly. “I’m sure he sorted out his priorities?”

“Dude, this is Geri we’re talking about. He’s been e-mailing everyone twice a day for the past week, that’s how sorted his priorities are.”

Juan Carlos makes a pained sound from the back of his throat.

“I’m moving to Madrid next year,” he mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. “They all hate each other over there, it must be great.”

“Perfect,” Vanessa says. “In the mean time, be a good boy and pick a costume. You could go as Grumpy Santa,” Juan Carlos snorts, definitely not amused. “Or, Saras and Anna are going as Dracula and, uh, I guess Dracula’s second wife?” She laughs a little. “We can do the other two wives, if you want.”

“Ah. Ah. Ah,” Juan Carlos says, dry as the desert.

“Or, oh my God this is the best idea ever, you could go as Xavi! And Xavi can go as _you_ ,” she says, clapping her hands in front of her face; a cold shiver runs down Juan Carlos’ spine at the thought.

“What were you saying about vampires?”

 

“This is so racist,” Nate says as he zips up his kangaroo suit, careful not to get the zipper tangled in any of that fur. Joe slaps him on the back of his head, or where he guesses the back of Nate’s head is inside the kangaroo hoodie.

“We’re Australians,” he says, adjusting the plush kangaroo in his pouch. If he’s being completely honest, he’s still pretty bummed that Marce refused to get in there himself and play his baby child. “It’s not racist when _we_ do it.”

“Wait, so _I_ am being racist?” CJ asks, climbing out of the car and slipping on his cowboy hat — they’re going as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Aussie style, and they’ve been very careful at not talking about who’s who exactly.

“Nah, mate, you’re good, you’ve got our blessing,” Joe says, winking, and then they line up on the doormat striking their most badass poses and mate, Marce is missing out on so much awesomeness.

 

The moment he sees them, Gerard, who is sporting a bright ginger wig and has an even brighter red-and-yellow scarf around his neck, gives an honest to God shriek and slaps both his hands on his mouth, his big blue eyes going even bigger and bluer and maybe a little teary, too.

“We _match_ ,” he says, his voice thin with delight, and then he’s throwing his arms around Juan Carlos’ neck and tugging him into a warm, head-to-toe bear hug. Juan Carlos tries his best to be weirded out by the sudden outburst of affection, but Gerard is pretty much the opposite of creepy, and he smells so nice that not even Juan Carlos can resist him, so he ends up returning the hug after just a moment.

“Bon Carnaval,” he says, when Gerard finally pulls back and beams up at him like Juan Carlos brought in Christmas ten months in advance.

“You too!” Gerard says, and then he greets Vanessa with a kiss on each cheek and there’s a lot of flailing because they brought a ton of _coques de llardons_ and they shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble and oh God you’re so awesome, these look so delicious and please, come in.

The house is already buzzing with guests and when Gerard excuses himself to go put the food they brought on display, Juan Carlos pushes his fake round glasses up his nose and sticks an elbow into Vanessa’s side.

“You knew about this,” he says, trying not to smile. She flips her hair and tugs at the hem of her black leather pants.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Juan Carlos laughs and hangs up both their coats. “I’ll, uh, go look for Saras.”

“I’ll go see how many people compliment for my new hair color,” Vanessa says, and that’s how older, bearded Harry Potter and not-so-blonde Shakira part ways.

Juan Carlos takes a careful look at the living room — one of the advantages of being over six feet tall is that he doesn’t need to stand on his toes to see everyone, — and, when he doesn’t spot any teammate or any other vaguely familiar face, he starts walking in the direction that feels less crowded. A couple of people in matching costumes actually stop him and smile up at him so he feels compelled to stay and make small talk, which is not so bad entirely, but it would be so much better if only he knew who the hell it is he’s talking to.

He manages to get to the next room without any diplomatic incidents, and he even got a glass of grape juice at some point; he sighs and excuses his way past a group of zombies when he finally spots Saras leaning against the wall next to the crackling fireplace.

“Hey,” Juan Carlos says, rubbing the tip of his nose when he realizes that Anna is there, too, and she can actually see him in his Gryffindor attire. “Bon Carnaval, I guess. Anna, you look, what’s the word, uh, amazing.”

He grins, and leans in for a polite kiss on the cheek; he’s also painfully aware of the fact that Saras is, as usual, trying to burn his clothes away with his mind.

“You look very dashing yourself,” Anna says, straightening his tie and then running her thumb over the Hogwarts crest stitched to Juan Carlos’ waistcoat. “That’s a terribly accurate costume.”

“It looks like someone rubbed together Harry Potter and John Lennon until I popped out,” he mutters, looking down at himself. “Which, when you think about it, doesn’t even sound so bad.”

Anna laughs and pats his chest. Suddenly, Saras has his arm around Juan Carlos’ neck, and he’s pressing himself against his back like he does sometimes during training, like he did during the clásico last December; Juan Carlos flushes and tries to stay very still, and he can’t look at Anna because she’s grinning the same way Vanessa always does.

“Your wand is in my pants,” Saras says, smirking and then kissing him right under his ear. Juan Carlos shakes with laughter and maybe there’s a touch of warm pleasure curling inside his stomach.

“How are the kids?” he asks Anna, when Saras doesn’t let go of him.

“They’re fine, just driving me crazy,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Aila’s coughing fits have stopped, thank God.”

“Wait, really? Elsa got them too last week, she’s been coughing her lungs out ever since.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty bad. Saras must’ve made her drink two tons of hot milk and honey, I think she actually compelled herself to get better just to make him stop.”

Juan Carlos giggles. “Well then, it worked.”

“All right,” Saras says, setting his glass on top of the fireplace. “Juanqui, where’s your husband?”

“You’re funny,” Juan Carlos says, mockingly surprised; Saras makes a graceful bowing thing with his head. “I don’t know, I think she went to find her double.”

“Oh, so she did dress up as Shakira?” Anna asks, and when Juan Carlos nods, Saras rubs his hands together.

“Let’s go find her then, I can’t possibly miss that.”

 

Leo is not entirely sure what’s wrong with Cesc tonight. That is, in addition to the things that are usually wrong with Cesc; namely, his hair, or the flimsy excuse for a beard it’s taken to grow on his chin, or the fact that he’s dating a pregnant woman who cheated on her former husband — but we don’t talk about _that_ , Leo reminds himself, because we’re friends, good friends, great friends, and great friends have each others’ back, no matter what.

And Leo is totally, absolutely striving to be the best friend ever, because his curriculum is otherwise stuffed: best footballer ever, check; pocket-sized nightmare of every single goalkeeper in the world, check; devoted boyfriend and loving father, check and check. So he sits next to Cesc and feeds him bottle after bottle after bottle of barely alcoholic beer, and he tries to be unobtrusive and at the same time helpful and supportive and present.

“I should pay more attention to Andres on the pitch,” he mumbles, drinking orange juice out of a glass with a straw.

Cesc, who’s dressed as a pirate and probably put on the eyeliner on his own, looks at him for the first time in maybe three hours.

“What?”

“Nothing!” Leo quickly says. “Just — it was stupid, don’t worry. Do you wanna go hang out by the pool maybe?”

“It’s cold outside,” Cesc points out, pouting.

“Yeah, but you have your coat and I have my, well,” Leo points at his stuffy dragon outfit, which is currently keeping his body at the perfect temperature to bake cookies. “My _everything_.”

Cesc gives him a faint smile. “I don’t really feel like going, but you go, hey, have fun.”

“No, I think I’ll stay,” Leo says, pulling a tiny face. Cesc takes another sip of his beer and then sighs.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m being stubborn and it’s just… I don’t know. This is just like London all over again, Jesus.”

Leo blinks slowly, trying to make sense of that piece of information. In the end he says, quietly, “You never told me what you and Geri were fighting about back then, you know.”

Cesc looks squeaked out, and he starts peeling the label off his beer bottle.

“It was stupid,” he mutters, after a while.

“So this bad mood of yours right now, it’s stupid too?” Leo asks, genuinely curious; Cesc looks at him and, after a moment’s hesitation, he nods.

“You know how we are,” he says, with a weak attempt of at humor. Leo laughs.

“Yeah, I know,” he nods, and bumps his shoulder into Cesc’s a little; him and Geri, they’re the biggest idiots Leo has ever met, and they’re stubborn and they won’t talk about their problems but luckily, no problem is ever enough to break them up completely, Leo knows that.

And because he truly, really is the best friends that ever was, he picks up the heavy and terribly tacky dragon mask that came with his costume. When he puts it on, Cesc laughs for the first time since he saw Gerard, Juan Carlos and Shakira’s matching Harry Potter Trio costumes, and he leans into him a little.

“Thanks, Leo,” he says. Leo beams down at him, then he realizes that Cesc can’t see him, but he figures it’s fine anyway; there’s no way he doesn’t know.

 

Raúl shuts his laptop hard enough that if it was a living, breathing thing, it would’ve bruised.

“That’s it,” he says, loudly. “I’m moving to Barça.”

“No, you’re not,” Sergio says from where he’s lazily draped across the couch on the other side of the room. Raúl just frowns harder.

“Yes, I am.”

“WHAT?” Alvaro calls out from the bathroom, yelling over the running shower. “I can hear you’re talking but I can’t hear what you’re _saying_! Speak up, motherfuckers!”

“I said I’m moving to Barça this summer!” Raúl yells back; Sergio shakes his head, unimpressed, and keeps picking at his cuticles.

Alvaro comes out of the bathroom naked and shaking with laughter, and he didn’t even shut the shower. “You’re doing _what_?”

“Jesus, Arbeloa, get dressed!” Sergio says, laughing and throwing a pillow at him, which Alvaro catches mid-flight and doesn’t use to cover his nether regions.

“Chori, what’s wrong?”

Raúl points at the laptop like it’s offended his football prowess or, even worse, his FIFA skills.

“They had a _costume party_ for Carnival, I just saw the pictures Xavi sent to Iker. All I get is the two of you and Iker, if he ever gets off the phone with David,” he says. “A costume party, Zipi. With _kangaroos_. I want that, too.”

Alvaro laughs and then awwws at him and then he tries to cuddle Raúl, which would be wonderful news at any other given moment but he’s naked, right now, and also wet, and when Raúl tries to squirm away from his tentacle-y grip, they both end up ass-first on the floor.

Half an hour later, Iker walks back into the room to find his vice-captain’s neck held in a deathly thigh-grip by a very naked Alvaro, while Raúl is grinning like a mad man and filming the struggle despite the fact that Sergio is biting at his ankle hard enough to draw blood.

“Please tell me I tripped down the stairs and this is actually a nightmare I’m having while I’m in a coma,” Iker says, and if he gripped the door handle any harder he’d sprain half his knuckles.

“I’m not sure you get to have nightmares, if you’re in a coma,” Alvaro says, still naked, still trying to suffocate Sergio.

“Of course you can,” Raúl says, rather indignantly, which sparks up an heated discussion, and Alvaro is still not wearing any pants, or anything at all, and Iker never thought this day would ever come, but he is seriously beginning to regret not agreeing to go to Gerard’s stupid costume party.


End file.
